Summary
- Germany reports over 1,000 Covid-linked deaths Health authorities registered 26 391 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, and 1070 deaths. But the government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute said the numbers remain skewed following underreporting over the Christmas break, and a true picture of where the virus is at in Germany won’t be clear until January 17 at the earliest.
- Europe has surpassed over 25m cases of Covid, according to Reuters analysis. Several countries reinstating or extending lockdowns as a resurgence in the pandemic threatens to overwhelm health services.
- UK records highest number of daily deaths since April 21. The UK government said a further 1,162 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday. This is the highest daily reported total since April 21 when 1,224 were recorded. It brings the UK total number of deaths to 78,508. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 94,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
- Japan declares state of emergency for Tokyo area as Covid-19 cases surge. Japan has declared a one-month state of emergency in the capital, Tokyo, and three neighbouring prefectures to stem the spread of coronavirus infections, as new daily cases surged to a record of more than 7,000, media reported.
- WHO calls for intensified measures over “alarming” virus variant. The World Health Organization’s European branch said more needs to be done to deal with the alarming situation brought on by a recently discovered variant of the coronavirus. WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, also urged safe flexibility on the time between the first and second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
- Russia’s official number of coronavirus deaths passes 60,000. Russia reported 23,541 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, which brought the total number of cases to 3,332,142.
- Covid kills half of Sussex care home’s residents over Christmas. A care home in East Sussex has been devastated by Covid, losing half of all its residents to the disease over Christmas, fuelling fears the new, more transmissible virus variant sweeping the south-east of England is beginning to breach homes’ defences.
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France’s border with UK to remain closed ‘for foreseeable future’, said the Prime Minister Jean Castex. So far 19 cases of new fast-moving variant of the coronavirus, identified by scientists in the UK and called the “English variant” in France have been identified. Castex said bars, restaurants, ski resorts would not be opening at the end of the month and it was too early to say if they would be able to reopen by mid February.
France's border with UK to remain closed 'for foreseeable future'
France’s borders with the UK will remain closed for the foreseeable future and any French residents returning must have a negative Covid-19 test, the Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday evening.
So far 19 cases of new fast-moving variant of the coronavirus, identified by scientists in the UK and called the “English variant” here in France have been identified and the French health authorities are anxious to stem its progress.
Castex said 2021 would be the “year of hope” and that France was doing better than its neighbours, but urged the population to continue adhering to protection measures, including masks and distancing. He said bars, restaurants, ski resorts would not be opening at the end of the month and it was too early to say if they would be able to reopen by mid February. He said the vaccine was the “main hope” in combatting the virus and was the French government’s “number one priority”.
Responding to criticism that the vaccine programme has been extremely slow, he said not everyone could be inoculated at once and the elderly were a priority. The programme will be gradually opened up to the wider and younger population.
Both Castex and health minister Olivier Véran urged French people to take the vaccine if offered, saying it was safe and the right thing to do for the wider community and to combat the virus. Polls show around 50% of those asked say they won’t be inoculated and there is widespread suspicions of vaccines in France.
Véran said:
Get vaccinated. Encourage your loved ones to get vaccinated. Take the opportunity that science is offering.
He added that the new virus was 40-70% more contagious than the classic coronavirus. From tomorrow, all positive Covid-19 tests that “seem doubtful” will be examined to establish if they are the new “English variant”.
Updated
Health authorities in France have recommended delaying the second doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday.
Veran told reporters that the second shot of the vaccine could be delayed to six weeks after the first instead of three as had been planned so far.
Spain became the fourth Western European country to pass 2 million cumulative COVID-19 cases, health ministry data showed on Thursday, while the rate of infection continued to climb.
Reuters reports:
The ministry reported 42,360 cases since Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,024,904. The death toll rose by 245 to 51,675.
No data was released on Wednesday due to a national holiday to celebrate Epiphany.
After dipping below 200 cases per 100,000 people in early December, the coronavirus’ incidence increased steadily to reach 321 cases per 100,000 on Thursday.
Authorities in the northern region of Castile and Leon announced they would close down shopping centres and gyms, and extended a ban on non-essential travel across regional borders until May.
The move follows a similar tightening in northeastern Catalonia, where all citizens are confined to their home municipality for 10 days except for urgent trips.
But as coronavirus cases across Europe surpassed 25 million on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, measures across most of Spain remained less stringent than elsewhere in the region.
A national opinion poll showed almost 60% of Spaniards felt the government should have imposed tougher restrictions to contain the virus.
Spain has vaccinated 207,323 people so far, up by nearly 68,000 since Tuesday.
A Chinese vaccine that has already been sold around the developing world is reportedly 78% effective, according to final trials in Brazil, and is expected to be heading for approval and widespread use.
Sinovac, the makers of the vaccine called CoronaVac, have sold over 300m doses, mostly to low and middle-income countries. Those vaccines approved globally so far, from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, are expensive and need freezers at -70C for long-term storage, so difficult to use in low income settings. CoronaVac is stable at ordinary fridge temperatures of 2 to 8C.
Covax, the UN-backed facility to buy vaccines for all countries, has invested in CoronaVac so will expect to have supplies to distribute in due course.
The phase 3 final trials of the vaccine in Brazil are said to have shown 78% efficacy by officials in the state of Sao Paulo among nearly 12,500 participants, although no data has been released. A small trial in Turkey earlier was said to have had even higher efficacy, at more than 91%.
The Chinese government has already licensed a vaccine approved by a different state-owned company, called Sinopharm, which claimed efficacy of 79% – but no data has yet been made public.
Sinovax’s CoronaVac was approved in China for emergency use in high risk groups as early as July, but because of the low levels of virus in China itself, the final large-scale trials have had to be carried out abroad.
The vaccine is made in a more traditional way than others approved so far, from inactivated virus and is cheaper than Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccines as well as stable at 2 to 8C. Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine is also cheap and kept in an ordinary fridge and is expected to be widely used in low income settings, but only the UK has so far approved it.
Sinovac is one of the few Chinese companies that already exports a vaccine to the rest of the world. It has World Health Organisation approval, known as pre-qualification, for a hepatitis A vaccine.
At a daily press conference this afternoon the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said by the end of the week there will be over 1,000 GP sites, 223 hospital sites, seven giant vaccination centres and 200 community pharmacies delivering the vaccine.
Everyone should have a vaccination available within 10 miles, he said.
He added that 1.26 million people have been vaccinated in England, 13,000 in Scotland 49,000 in Wales and 46,000 in Northern Ireland - nearly 1.5 million people in the UK.
By the end of this month he said he hoped to have offered every elderly care home resident a vaccine.
Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, said the pressures on the NHS are real and growing. The number of Covid patients in hospital is growing “very, very rapidly”.
He added that if people in the top four priority groups get vaccinated, that should prevent the vast majority of Covid deaths.
The UK has vaccinated more people than countries like Germany and France, he said but the target was challenging and would require supply to expand.
They have to expand supply. But the supply is expanding, he says.
Most vaccinations would take place at GP practices, where GPs will vaccinate their local patients, while hospital hubs and larger vaccination centres, which will work seven days a week, with extended hours, would also be used.
He referenced Israel’s successful vaccination programme, which has operated through large vaccination centres. But the UK’s geography meant a mixed approach should work better, he said.
Over 80,000 people have been trained on these vaccinations, he says. Some 18,000 of them have already started work. St John Ambulance have contributed volunteers, while the armed forces would also be involved.
PA staff photographer Victoria Jones has tweeted these pictures of nurses at work in the Intensive Care Unit of St George’s Hospital London in the UK. Nurses normally assigned to one patient are now looking after our at once, all while wearing full PPE.
Nurses work in the Intensive Care Unit in St George's Hospital, London, where the number of ICU beds has been increased from 60 to 120, mostly for coronavirus. Nurses normally assigned to one patient are now dealing with up to four at once, whilst wearing full PPE #Covid19UK #NHS pic.twitter.com/pO51iiu4Sg
— Victoria Jones (@VictoriaJonesPA) January 7, 2021
Health authorities in Australia have cracked down on a number of wildly inaccurate rapid Covid-19 antibody test kits being pushed on to the Australian market, cancelling approvals, issuing fines and pledging to investigate one supplier marketing an unapproved device.
Relatively little scrutiny was applied to the large volumes of rapid test kits that were rushed on to the Australian market in the pandemic’s early stages.
The kits promised to detect antibodies and return results within 15 minutes, without the need for laboratory testing.
UK records highest number of daily deaths since April 21
The UK government said a further 1,162 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday.
This is the highest daily reported total since April 21 when 1,224 were recorded, the
It brings the UK total to 78,508.
The figures continue to be affected by a lag in the publication of recent data and will contain some deaths that took place over the Christmas and New Year period that have only just been reported.
Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on deaths that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 94,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.
The UK government also said that, as of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 52,618 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 2,889,419.
Two drugs used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could help to save the lives of intensive care patients with severe Covid, researchers have found.
Early results from the international trial previously suggested tocilizumab might improve outcomes for those with life-threatening coronavirus infections. However, other trials reported mixed results.
Now further results from a larger group of patients not only confirm the drug brings benefits but reveal that another arthritis drug, sarilumab, appears to do the same, not only saving lives but cutting the length of time patients spent in intensive care.
Prof Anthony Gordon, of Imperial College London, the UK’s chief investigator on the trial behind the findings, said he expected the drugs to be used in patients in the UK imminently. He said:
My understanding is they will become available so that we can immediately start treating patients in the intensive care units with these drugs so that they can start having immediate effects.
Italy reported 414 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday against 548 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 18,020 from 20,331.
Reuters reports:
Some 121,275 swab tests were carried out in the past day, the ministry said, against a previous 178,596.
Italy has registered 77,291 COVID-19 deaths since its outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, the second highest toll in Europe and the sixth highest in the world. The country has also reported 2.220 million cases to date, the health ministry said.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 stood at 23,291 on Thursday, up 117 from the day before. There were 156 admissions to intensive care units, compared with 183 on Wednesday.
The current number of intensive care patients rose by 16 to 2,587, reflecting those who died or were discharged after recovery.
When Italy’s second wave of the epidemic was accelerating fast in the first half of November, hospital admissions were rising by about 1,000 per day, while intensive care occupancy was increasing by about 100 per day
Kenya’s health minister says the country is expected to start receiving 24 million doses next month of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, as countries in sub-Saharan Africa begin to announce progress in obtaining the desperately needed vaccines.
The Associated Press report:
Mutahi Kagwe said on Wednesday that health workers and teachers will have priority for vaccinations in East Africa’s economic hub and that the shots will be voluntary.
The doses are being obtained through the COVAX facility meant to ensure vaccines for lower-income countries, Dr. Patrick Amoth, director general of public health, told The Associated Press.
Kenya has been participating in a small-scale trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which requires two doses administered weeks apart.
The vaccine can be stored at what AstraZeneca has called “normal refrigerated conditions,” which is expected to help in parts of the African continent where poor infrastructure will challenge the mass rollout of doses.
Kenya’s news came as South Africa on Thursday announced it will begin receiving 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine later this month, the first announced deal for COVID-19 doses in the country with more than 1 million confirmed infections.
Kenya has had over 97,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the country of more tan 50 million people.
A recent surge in infections has eased, and schools reopened this week, but health workers in Kenya have expressed concern about the lack of support as some doctors and others die without being able to afford proper care. Doctors across the country held a brief strike last month over inadequate personal protective equipment and insurance.
While some of Africa’s richer countries are now announcing vaccine deals — Morocco last month announced it had ordered 65 million doses from AstraZeneca and China’s Sinopharm — it’s not clear how long it will take for COVID-19 vaccines to reach countries on the 54-nation continent without the resources to strike their own agreements.
The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has expressed concern that the coronavirus could become endemic in parts of Africa if it takes more than two or three years to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population of some 1.3 billion people.
Europe surpasses 25m Covid cases, reports say
Coronavirus cases in Europe has surpassed 25 million, according to a Reuters tally, with several countries reinstating or extending lockdowns as a resurgence in the pandemic threatens to overwhelm health services.
Europe crosses 25 million COVID-19 cases, according to a Reuters tally pic.twitter.com/jabeZDIgcB
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 7, 2021
Reuters reports: Europe has recorded at least 25,016,506 cases and 559,863 deaths since the start of the pandemic, recently reporting over a million new cases about every four days. (
With just a tenth of the world’s population, Europe remains the worst-affected region, with nearly 30% of global cases and deaths.
In Britain Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a strict new national lockdown on Tuesday, warning that a coronavirus variant first identified in the country was spreading so rapidly it risked overwhelming the healthcare system within 21 days.
Germany, which is currently reporting the highest daily deaths in the region, with more than 600 deaths daily on a weekly average, extended its nationwide lockdown until the end of January.
In Italy, restrictions imposed over the Christmas break were extended until Jan. 15, while in Greece the government imposed a strict lockdown from Jan. 3 to Jan. 11.
The fresh outbreaks have prompted debates over how to roll-out vaccines across the region, with some countries considering joining Britain in vaccinating as many people as possible with a single dose.
Countries in eastern Europe remain the worst affected by the virus, accounting for more than 30% of the region’s case load, according to a Reuters analysis.
Russia, which was the first European country to report more than 3 million cases last month, ranks behind only India and Brazil as the most affected countries in the world.
Slovakia has seen record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations in recent days, with more than 2,900 cases recorded on Tuesday.
Updated
The head of the Irish health service has said there were early signs the spread of Covid-19 was being curtailed by the country’s lockdown, which began in late December and has since been tightened after a spike in infections.
We are seeing “early signs of reducing numbers of cases, a reducing growth rate of the number of cases, and reducing number of contacts” that people report having in the days prior to diagnosis, the head of the health service executive Paul Reid told a news conference.
The chief clinical officer Colm Henry said it was not yet clear whether the number of hospitalisations by mid-January would be closer to the health service’s optimistic scenario of 1,500 or the pessimistic scenario of 2,500, up from 1,022 today.
Vaccine deliveries under the Covax facility coordinated by the World Health Organization to support lower-income countries could start this month, O’Brien has said.
We need about $7bn in order to deliver enough vaccine to these countries through the end of 2021. The facility has already raised about $6bn of the $7bn.
So the facility has access to over 2bn doses of vaccine. We will start to deliver those vaccines probably by the end of January, and if not, then certainly by early February and mid-February.
The World Health Organization is reviewing vaccines from AstraZeneca and Chinese developers for possible emergency listing, its top immunisation and vaccination expert has said, following the United Nation’s health agency’s listing of a vaccine from Pfizer/ BioNTech on 31 December.
Urging vaccine developers to submit data on promising candidates, Kate O’Brien told an online social media event:
We are under review of some of the vaccines from China, for the AstraZeneca vaccine. We are in discussions and beginning processes with other vaccines.
A vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech is 78% effective based on late-stage trial results in Brazil, Reuters reports.
Citing a person familiar with the study, the news agency has said the shot is moving a step closer to regulatory approval in South America’s biggest country.
The results, closely watched by countries counting on the vaccine to begin mass inoculations, come after Turkish researchers said in December that the vaccine showed 91.25% efficacy based on interim data.
Brazil and Indonesia, which have the most cases in Latin America and Southeast Asia respectively, are preparing to start using the vaccine, called CoronaVac, this month.
Although the efficacy of CoronaVac trails the more than 90% success rate of vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech, it is easier to transport and can be stored at normal refrigerator temperatures.
Sinovac also has supply deals with Turkey, Chile, Singapore, Ukraine and Thailand.
Germany reports over 1,000 Covid-linked deaths
Health authorities in Germany registered 26 391 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, and 1070 deaths. But the government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute said the numbers remain skewed following underreporting over the Christmas break, and a true picture of where the virus is at in Germany won’t be clear until January 17 at the earliest.
Meanwhile a row over whether Jens Spahn, the health minister failed to order enough vaccine doses for Germany, continues. Spahn has defended the apparent sluggishness of Germany’s vaccine programme compared to that of the US or Britain, maintaining that a shortfall in vaccine supplies following their approval was always viewed as inevitable. He has said the problems lie in production capacities more than in distribution capabilities and Merkel has staunchly defended him.
Amid evidence of a growing vaccine scepticism amongst Germans, Helge Braun, the chief of staff to chancellor Angela Merkel - and himself a medical doctor - has urged people to recognise the sense of being vaccinated. He said:
This vaccine is hugely less risky than the risks of the infection itself.
He stressed that Germany had sought to ensure the highest safety standards, putting BioNTech/Pfizer and Modern - the vaccines which have so far been approved by the EU’s medical agency, EMA - through the standard approval procedure, rather than the emergency approval procedure that the US and Britain chose to use.
With the prospect of a vaccine on the horizon, a survey shows that a narrow majority - 56 per cent - has rejected the idea of an obligatory vaccination, while 62 per cent is against the concept of those who have been vaccinated receiving advantages over those who are still waiting. It had been mooted that restaurants, airlines and hotels could in future refuse to accept customers who had either not yet been, or had no intention of being, inoculated.
However twenty three per cent said they could imagine such a ‘vaccine passport’ once it could be proven that those who had been vaccinated were unable to transmit the disease. So far there is no evidence for this, although BioNTech, the biotechnology company which created the first vaccine to be approved, has said it is expecting the results of its study on this in February.
Updated
Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa announced has said Spain will receive 600,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which was granted conditional marketing authorization by the European Commission on Wednesday, reports El Pais.
At a public event in Catalonia Illa said:
The forecast we have based on the information from the company is that we will begin to receive the first doses of this vaccine in seven to 10 days’ time
The shipments will be spaced out over a six-week period.
Sweden has registered 12,536 new Covid cases and 277 deaths since January 5.
A mixed coronavirus picture in Europe but data remains uncertain due to possible holiday effects. In the Nordics, coronavirus hospitalisations have continued to trend up in Sweden and Denmark while they remain much lower and more stable in Finland and Norway. https://t.co/kOUttaJ3fE
— Maija Kaartinen (@MaijaKaartinen) January 7, 2021
We track how #COVID19 is shutting down economy after economy via real-time traffic data.
— Exante Data (@ExanteData) January 7, 2021
Current countries in focus: #Thailand #Peru #Greece #Argentina #Mexico#SocialDistancing pic.twitter.com/KfUOXcd6mR
Lebanon began a 25-day nationwide lockdown today to limit the spread of the coronavirus as infections hit a record in the tiny Mediterranean nation and patients overwhelm the health care sector.
In Israel, the government prepared for a two-week shutdown as the country’s infection rate soars.
The Associated Press reports:
The lockdown in Lebanon is the third since the first case was reported in late February. It closes most businesses and limits traffic by imposing an odd and even license plate rule on alternating days. It also reduces the number of flights at the country’s only international airport.
As of Thursday, a daily 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew takes effect that will last until Feb. 1.
On Wednesday, Lebanon broke its single-day record of new coronavirus infections on the eve of the lockdown with 4,166 cases reported in 24 hours.
[...]
Israel’s government has finalized a series of strict lockdown measures as the country’s infection rate has soared in recent weeks.
For two weeks starting Thursday night, Israeli schools and all non-essential businesses will shut down, gatherings will be restricted to five persons indoors and 10 outdoors, and movement and travel abroad restricted.
Israel has recorded over 466,000 cases of the coronavirus and at least 3,527 deaths, according to the health ministry. The number of serious COVID-19 cases has steadily risen in the past month, even as Israel started rolling out vaccines to high risk populations, including health care workers and the elderly.
[...]
In Egypt, Coptic Orthodox Christians were barred from attending Mass on Christmas Eve as the country fights a surge in coronavirus cases.
The church canceled celebrations around the country and allowed only a limited number of clerics at Midnight Mass on the eve of Orthodox Christmas. Copts celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar, meaning it falls on Jan. 7.
Egypt has reported more than 145,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, including nearly 8,000 deaths. However, the actual number of COVID-19 cases in Egypt is thought to be far higher, mostly due to limited testing and uncounted patients treated at home or in private hospitals.
Germany faces the risk of a much longer coronavirus lockdown if the federal states do not consistently implement tougher restrictions, especially in light of a highly contagious new variant, an aide to Chancellor Angela Merkel has said.
Helge Braun, head of Merkel’s office, told Reuters in an interview:
With every relaxation now, the likelihood of even longer necessary restrictions is greater and greater.
Like many other European countries, Germany is struggling to contain a second wave of the virus.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 26,391 in a day to 1.84 million, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases said on Thursday. The overall death toll rose by 1,070 to 37,607.
In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states on Tuesday agreed to extend a nationwide lockdown until the end of the month and introduce tougher restrictions.
Braun alluded to the fact that several states, such as Lower Saxony and Baden-Wuerttemberg, want to partially reopen primary schools as early as the middle of this month rather than keeping them shut until the end of the month as agreed.
Braun also warned against a complete loss of control due to the spread of a contagious new variant of the virus that has spread rapidly in Britain and which could mean that Germany has to agree even tougher restrictions at the end of January.
He said:
Before the mutation can spread in Germany, we must get the overall infection situation under control.
Malaysia has reported its biggest daily rise in coronavirus cases with the government considering imposing restrictions in some areas. Businesses warned that another nationwide lockdown would further batter the economy.
Reuters reports:
Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah had said on Wednesday that the government was considering targeted lockdowns in parts of the country.
The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers said that it supported a partial lockdown but that wider restrictions could cripple businesses already impacted by the pandemic.
The group’s president Soh Thian Lai said in a statement:
Should a second total lockdown be instituted, there is grave fear over the collapse of the business sectors and economy given that the several major states are the hub and heart of the country*s economic activities.
A lockdown of four weeks or more would reduce business sustainability to one to three months, Soh said.
Malaysia has gradually loosened restrictions since last May, two months after it first closed its borders and began a strict nationwide lockdown.
It began reimposing some curbs after cases started to spike in September. On Thursday the health ministry reported a record 3,027 new infections, raising the total so far to 128,465 cases, including 521 deaths.
The ministry projects that infections will rise to 5,000 cases a day by April if the reproduction number used to measure the virus’ spread, known as the R0, remains at 1.1, Noor Hisham said in a Facebook post.
An increase in the R0 value to 1.2 would see cases rising by 8,000 daily by the third week of March, he said.
There has been a 24% increase in people testing positive for the coronavirus in the week to 30 December in England, the country’s test and trace scheme has said.
England has seen a spike in cases resulting in a new national lockdown.
The scheme contacted 92.3% of the 493,573 people identified as close contacts of positive cases, a similar proportion to the week before.
The health ministry said in its weekly update:
The number of close contacts identified has notably increased across the last 3 weeks and is more than double the number identified at the end of November.
Latest: 311,372 people in England tested positive for coronavirus in the week to 30 December, the highest since Test and Trace began and a 24% increase on the previous week.
— Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday) January 7, 2021
This increase in positive cases is in spite of a 29% fall in people being tested over Christmas (24-29 December) compared to the previous week. The number of people being tested had been rising throughout December.
— Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday) January 7, 2021
Improvement in turnaround times may be because labs processed 740,564 fewer tests in the week to 30 December, compared to previous week. Fewer people got tested over Christmas.
— Josh Halliday (@JoshHalliday) January 7, 2021
Updated
Summary
Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the globe over the last few hours:
- Japan declares state of emergency for Tokyo area as Covid-19 cases surge. Japan has declared a one-month state of emergency in the capital, Tokyo, and three neighbouring prefectures to stem the spread of coronavirus infections, as new daily cases surged to a record of more than 7,000, media reported.
- WHO calls for intensified measures over “alarming” virus variant. The World Health Organization’s European branch said more needs to be done to deal with the alarming situation brought on by a recently discovered variant of the coronavirus. WHO’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, also urged safe flexibility on the time between the first and second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
- US suffers record daily coronavirus deaths. The US suffered another sad day on Wednesday amid the chaos at the Capitol, with the country’s daily coronavirus death toll the highest recorded in any country over the course of the pandemic, at 3,865 for 6 January.
- Dire warning that London hospitals could be overwhelmed by Covid. Hospitals in London could soon be overwhelmed by Covid-19 and left short of almost 5,500 beds they need to cope with the explosion in cases, NHS leaders have revealed.
- Russia’s official number of coronavirus deaths passes 60,000. Russia reported 23,541 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, which brought the total number of cases to 3,332,142.
- Covid kills half of Sussex care home’s residents over Christmas. A care home in East Sussex has been devastated by Covid, losing half of all its residents to the disease over Christmas, fuelling fears the new, more transmissible virus variant sweeping the south-east of England is beginning to breach homes’ defences.
Hungary is proposing to extend remote learning for secondary schools beyond next Monday due to high coronavirus infections and uncertainties over a new variant of the virus that first emerged in the UK, a state secretary said.
Zoltan Maruzsa said prime minister Viktor Orbán’s government would make a decision about the extension on Friday, adding that classroom teaching in secondary schools was unlikely to resume next week.
Moderna Covid-19 vaccine is unlikely to win approval in Japan until May due to requirements for local clinical trials, news agency Reuters reports, casting doubt over a nationwide vaccination rollout before the summer Tokyo Olympics.
With an eye on the Olympics due to start in late July, Japan has secured rights to at least 540m doses of Covid-19 vaccines from several Western developers, the biggest quantity in Asia and more than enough for its 126 million population.
But Tokyo faces a major regulatory bottleneck due to requirements for local clinical trials before requesting approval. Several other countries have fast-tracked the review process to expedite mass inoculations.
A Japanese trial of the Moderna vaccine, which has already won approval in the United States, Europe, Canada and Israel, is due to start this month.
Masayuki Imagawa, the head of the Japan vaccine business for Takeda Pharmaceutical, told Reuters it would likely take several more months to complete the trial and said securing approval in May was “the best case scenario”.
Takeda, Japan’s biggest drugmaker, is a critical component to prime ,inister Yoshihide Suga’s aim to have enough vaccines for the population by June before the Summer Games, currently scheduled to start on 23 July.
The company is handling domestic approval and imports of the Moderna shot and local production of Novavax’s vaccine, whose development and approval in Japan is further off.
South Africa’s health ministry said the country would get 1.5m vaccines from the Serum Institute of India (SII), with one million coming in January and the remainder the following month.
The ministry added in a statement that it was working with the country’s health regulator SAHPRA to ensure there were no delays with the rollout of the vaccines.
WHO calls for intensified measures over "alarming" virus variant
The World Health Organization’s European branch has said more needs to be done to deal with the alarming situation brought on by a recently discovered variant of the coronavirus.
Speaking at a press conference, the WHO’s regional director for Europe Hans Kluge, called the current situation “a tipping-point in the course of the pandemic,” as Europe was both challenged by surging cases and new strains of the virus causing Covid-19.
“This is an alarming situation, which means that for a short period of time we need to do more than we have done and to intensify the public health and social measures to be certain we can flatten the steep vertical line in some countries,” Kluge said, referring primarily to the new variant first discovered in the UK.
While it is natural for viruses to change over time and the variant is not believed to cause more severe symptoms, its “increased transmissibility,” means it is still raises concern, according to WHO Europe.
“Without increased control to slow its spread, there will be an increased impact on already stressed and pressurised health facilities,” Kluge said.
The measures proposed by Kluge were those “with which we are all familiar,” listing the adherence to generalised mask wearing, limiting social gatherings, maintaining physical distance and hand washing as prudent but in need of being intensified.
These measures coupled with adequate testing, quarantine and isolation, and vaccination, “will work if we all get involved,” Kluge said.
The WHO’s European Region comprises 53 countries and includes Russia and several countries in Central Asia, and 22 countries in the region have recorded cases of the new variant. According to the organisation’s estimates, the new strain could replace others across the region.
What does a new state of emergency mean for Japan?
The state of emergency declared in Japan on Thursday to tackle a record-breaking third coronavirus wave will be much less strict than lockdowns seen elsewhere, and softer even than the country’s first Covid emergency last spring. So how will it impact daily life?
Which areas are affected?
The month-long declaration is not nationwide. It affects four neighbouring areas that account for much of the rise in Japan’s caseload: Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama. The region, known as greater Tokyo, is home to more than 36 million people and accounts for a third of Japan’s GDP.
Other parts of the country are not affected for now, although one other region has said it could seek to be included if cases there continue to rise.
What does the measure allow?
A state of emergency empowers governors in affected regions to call for restrictions on movement and commerce but offers little in the way of enforcement.
Governors can request people stay inside and call for businesses that attract large numbers of people, like entertainment venues or department stores, to close their doors. But there are no punishments for those who defy the request, nor any other enforcement mechanisms.
Japan’s government is seeking to introduce legislation this month to allow fines for businesses that defy closure requests, and provide incentives for those who comply.
So what will change?
This time restaurants and bars will be asked to stop serving alcohol by 7pm and close an hour later, except for takeout and delivery.
Other businesses - from gyms to theme parks - are also likely to be asked to shorten hours, and online working will be encouraged with the goal of reducing commuter traffic by 70%. Residents will be asked to avoid non-essential outings, especially in the evening.
The strongest power accorded to governors is the ability to commandeer buildings or land for medical purposes, for example requiring landowners to turn over property to build temporary medical facilities.
Local education boards can also close schools but officials say there are no plans to do so for now. And reports suggest the cap on spectators at major events will be revised down to 5,000 people or 50% capacity, whichever number is smaller.
The restrictions are more lax than Japan’s last state of emergency, which saw many businesses closing altogether and shuttered schools.
How will the public react?
Despite the lack of enforcement, last year’s state of emergency was widely respected.
Suga’s government has seen approval ratings slump over its handling of the third wave of infections, with criticism of its decision to continue promoting a domestic travel campaign even as case numbers rose.
Polls from December on the prospect of a nationwide state of emergency showed a majority supporting the move.
What does it mean for the Olympics?
Japan’s government and Tokyo 2020 organisers have steadfastly stuck to the line that the virus-postponed Games will open this summer, and Suga reiterated this week his determination to hold the event as “proof of mankind’s victory over the virus”.
Still, a majority of the public, even before the emergency, opposed holding the Games this year, favouring further postponement or outright cancellation.
The recent retightening of border restrictions could theoretically affect visits by Olympic officials, but athletes are not due to begin arriving for months.
However, some health officials have warned the emergency would need to last around two months to have an effect on infection rates - edging close to the new 25 March start date for the Olympic torch relay.
Youths protesting a coronavirus curfew clashed with security forces overnight in the Senegalese capital, burning tyres and erecting barricades as police fired tear gas in Dakar’s Ngor district, an AFP photographer has reported.
Incidents were also reported in other parts of the capital overnight on Wednesday.
President Macky Sall called a state of emergency on Wednesday as he imposed a curfew from 9pm to 5am in Dakar and one other region of the West African country.
Dakar and the Thies region account for nearly 90% of Covid-19 infections, according to health authorities.
Sall’s cabinet justified the curfew by a surge in deaths and new infections including severe cases. The pandemic had abated in Senegal before a second wave struck.
As elsewhere in Africa, Senegal’s numbers are far from the levels reached in the West, with more than 20,000 cases and 433 deaths. But the outbreak has put a strain on the poor country’s healthcare system.
A field hospital in London will be used if necessary to relieve pressure on other hospitals in the city, the British health minister has said after leaked official documents suggested London risked running out of beds within two weeks.
Projections leaked to the Health Service Journal showed that even if the number of Covid-19 patients increased at the lowest rate considered likely, London hospitals would be short of nearly 2,000 acute and intensive beds by 19 January.
Asked about the projections, health secretary Matt Hancock said he was concerned about the pressures on the National Health Service (NHS) and the government was putting extra resources into the parts of the country under the most significant strain.
“For instance in London, (we’re) making sure that the Nightingale hospital is on standby and there, if needed. And if it is needed, of course, then it will be used,” he said, referring to a field hospital that was set up at the start of the pandemic.
England began a new national lockdown on Tuesday, with schools closed and citizens under orders to stay at home, as the government sought to contain a surge in infections, partly driven by a highly contagious new coronavirus variant.
On Wednesday, the daily number of deaths from Covid-19 across the UK surpassed 1,000 for the first time since April. The country’s total Covid-19 death toll since the start of the pandemic is over 77,300, the highest in Europe.
London and the southeast of England have been the areas worst-hit by the new variant.
The Nightingale hospital, based at the ExCel conference centre in east London, was originally set up for Covid-19 critical care, but only 51 patients were treated there before it was mothballed in May.
The British Medical Journal reported it was being repurposed to take non-Covid patients recovering from operations and procedures, in order to relieve the unprecedented demand for beds elsewhere.
Updated
Spain will receive 600,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine against coronavirus within the coming six weeks as part of the European Union contract, health minister Salvador Illa said.
Illa, who announced he would run for presidency of the region of Catalonia, also said he would stay on as health minister until he begins campaigning for the elections, due in February.
WHO Europe urges safe flexibility on timing of Covid-19 vaccine doses
European countries rolling out the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine should be flexible on the time between the first and second doses, the World Health Organization’s director for the region has said.
The WHO’s Hans Kluge’s comments come as some countries including Britain are seeking to counter low vaccine supplies by extending the gap between first and second doses to up to 12 weeks, and by considering lower volume doses of some shots.
Kluge said it was important to strike a balance between making the most of limited supplies and protecting as many people as possible.
“It is important that such a decision represents a safe compromise between the limited global production capacity at the moment, and the imperative for governments to protect as many people as possible while reducing the burden of any subsequent wave on the health systems,” he told a media briefing.
Proposals to prolong the gap between first and second dose have generated fierce debate among scientists. Pfizer and BioNTech have warned they have no evidence their vaccine would continue to be protective if the second dose was given more than 21 days after the first.
The EU gave emergency use approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech shot two weeks ago and hundreds of thousands of Europeans have received it since the rollout began just over a week ago.
Britain, which approved the shot in December, has administered more than a million doses of the vaccine in just under a month.
The European Union has secured 200m doses and has taken up an option for another 100m. It is also in talks for a new order of 50 - 100m doses, EU officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
Updated
South Africa’s health minister has detailed plans to vaccinate 40 million people or two-thirds of its population against Covid-19 in order to achieve herd immunity, as a mutant variant drove daily new cases above 21,000 for the first time.
A more contagious coronavirus mutant, first found on South Africa’s east coast late last year, is driving a second wave of infections across Africa’s most industrialised nation, pushing its total to 1.15 million, a third of all the continent’s cases.
This week, deaths in South Africa surpassed 30,000, and health minister Zweli Mkhize said both private and public hospitals were struggling to manage a growing influx of patients.
“Deaths and admissions are already higher than what we have ever experienced before,” he told parliament.
Mkhize proposed vaccinating the 40 million over a year - without saying when they would start - a goal he admitted was ambitious given the country’s capacity in terms of staff and facilities. He reiterated the country aimed get its first vaccines in February.
Priority would go to 1.25 million health workers, then a second phase would target other essential workers, people over 60 and people with co-morbidities - eight million in total - then the rest would be vaccinated in a third phase, he said.
Mkhize laid out a model for how vaccine procurement might work, based on the assumption that 70% would come from AstraZeneca, whose shots were the cheapest at 54 rand ($3.57) per dose, while Johnson and Johnson would get a 20% allocation, and Pfizer and Moderna 5% each.
South Africa has yet to sign a deal with any of them. It is participating in the COVAX initiative co-led by the World Health Organization, but that covers just 10% of its populace.
Malaysia on Thursday reported 3,027 new coronavirus cases, the biggest daily increase recorded in the country since the start of the pandemic.
A recent surge in infections has spooked investors, with the Kuala Lumpur stock index falling as much as 1.2% on Thursday, a day after authorities said the rise in cases was straining the country’s health system.
Ireland has secured commitments for the delivery of 470,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines before the end of March and hopes to secure “significant quantities” of doses of vaccines not yet approved, the health minister said.
Ireland, which has a population of 4.9 million, has confirmed orders for 360,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and for 110,000 doses of the rival Moderna vaccine, health minister Stephen Donnelly told RTÉ radio.
“It is my hope that we will also have significant quantities of AstraZeneca and possibly Johnson & Johnson as well” during the first quarter of the year, he said.
Flexible EU fiscal rules meant to help member states weather the pandemic and return to growth should stay in place until 2022, Portugal’s finance minister said, adding that a smooth implementation of the EU’s recovery fund was essential.
The European commission, which is in charge of enforcing EU fiscal rules, last year suspended requirements to keep government deficits below 3% of GDP and to cut public debt below 60% of GDP as the coronavirus pandemic hit the economy hard.
“We should not withdraw the exceptional rules ... too early,” João Leão told Reuters.
The EU should “make sure that for this year and next year we have flexibility to help support economic growth,” he said, adding: “We need room to have strong temporary measures to support the economy.”
Portugal took over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency at the start of January, and Leão said: “The main priority of the Portuguese presidency is to achieve a fast and strong economic recovery, that’s absolutely key for Europe.”
For that, he said, the €750bn ($925.35bn) recovery fund agreed last month was essential. “We need this process to be as smooth and fast as possible - the challenge is for countries to implement this concretely, sometimes it takes time. It is important that EU countries are aware of the need to starting planning right now.”
Indonesia on Thursday reported a daily record 9,321 new coronavirus infections, bringing its total cases to 797,723.
It was the second consecutive day of reporting record infections. Thursday’s data showed 224 people died due to the virus, bringing total fatalities to 23,520.
GP surgeries in England begin administering the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine from Thursday amid claims family doctors have been instructed to “stand down” routine care to prioritise inoculation.
The deployment comes after the UK daily reported death toll topped 1,000 and London’s hospitals were said to be on the brink of being overwhelmed.
It is hoped more than 700 sites in England will be delivering vaccines by the end of the week in a mass vaccination drive the prime minister has warned is now a race.
A further 1,041 people were reported on Wednesday to have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus – the highest UK daily total since 21 April. Record numbers are also in hospital with Covid-19, with a further 3,500 admitted in England on Monday.
GPs have been given instructions to “stand down non-essential work” in order to focus on the delivery of the jabs, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Lucy Watson, the chair of the Patients Association, told the newspaper: “For patients to be confident that the NHS remains open for business it would be helpful for there to be clear messages from NHS England about which healthcare activities are being stopped in primary care and which healthcare activities are being continued.”
Japan declares state of emergency for Tokyo area as Covid-19 cases surge
Japan has declared a one-month state of emergency in the capital, Tokyo, and three neighbouring prefectures to stem the spread of coronavirus infections, as new daily cases surged to a record of more than 7,000, media reported.
The government said the emergency would run from 8 January to 7 February in Tokyo and Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba prefectures, covering about 30% of the country’s population.
Restrictions would centre on measures to combat transmission in bars and restaurants, which the government says are main risk areas.
The curbs are less stringent than those imposed nationwide in April under an emergency that ran to late May, as the government seeks to limit damage to the world’s third-biggest economy while striving to defeat the virus once and for all as it looks ahead to staging the postponed summer Olympics.
“The situation has become increasingly troubling nationwide and we have a strong sense of crisis,” prime minister Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
Though still less seriously affected by the pandemic than many countries around the world, Japan has been unable to rein in the virus to the extent some countries in the region have.
Tokyo in particular has been a constant worry with its tally of positive tests jumping to 2,447 on Thursday, from a record of 1,591 the previous day. Authorities aim to start a vaccination campaign by the end of February.
The emergency goes into force on Friday. Measures include asking restaurants and bars to close by 8pm, and residents to refrain from non-urgent outings, more work from home and limiting crowds at sports and other big events to 5,000 people.
The four prefectures are home to about 150,000 restaurants and bars.
Ahead of the declaration, the Tokyo metropolitan government said exhibitions of the Olympics torch around the capital had been postponed.
Suga has said shorter operating hours for bars and restaurants had helped bring cases down in regions such as Osaka and Hokkaido.
Updated
UK home secretary Priti Patel acknowledged that new coronavirus regulations had restricted people’s freedoms “in an unprecedented way” but urged people to comply with them.
Speaking on LBC she said:
This is our normal way of life now. Everyone will acknowledge and recognise that this pandemic has taken away so many of our freedoms.
I absolutely believe in freedom and liberty, that is fundamental to our democracy.
However, these restrictions are in place for a reason, we are in a global pandemic and we’re seeing coronavirus rise.
This is a fundamental shift. Our freedoms have been taken away, restricted in an unprecedented way but at the same time we must reflect on the situation we are in. We want to save lives. People are dying.
Patel refused to speculate on whether there would be any easing of restrictions before March, but reiterated the need to “whack the virus down”.
“I would love to say, of course we would love to see that and say that but that’s not for us to speculate,” she told LBC. “We all just need to absolutely whack this virus down, we’ve got to reduce the R factor... it’s a wretched, wretched disease, it really is.
“Right now the focus of the government and the NHS is to get the jab into people’s arms.”
Ryanair has slashed its annual traffic forecast by around 5 million passengers, saying fresh lockdowns in Britain and Ireland targeting a highly contagious new variant of Covd-19 would leave the countries with “few, if any” flights.
The Irish low-cost carrier, Europe’s largest, also harshly criticised public health measures, saying Irish travel curbs were “inexplicable and ineffective” and called on Ireland and Britain to accelerate the pace of vaccine rollouts.
Both governments have said the rapid spread of a new, more transmissible coronavirus variant forced strict curbs on travel and say they are distributing vaccines as fast as they receive them.
The British and Irish measures “will result in few, if any, flights being operated to/from Ireland or the UK from the end of Jan until such time as these draconian travel restrictions are removed,” Ryanair said in a statement.
The airline will significantly reduce its flight schedules from 21 January until the end of the current lockdown, it said.
As a result, Ryanair said it had cut its traffic forecast for its financial year, which ends on 31 March, from its current forecast of “below 35 million” to between 26 and 30 million passengers.
The British government on Wednesday introduced legislation that would enable its current lockdown to remain in place until the end of March although prime minister Boris Johnson said he did not expect the full national lockdown to continue until then.
The Irish government on Wednesday said people should remain home except for essential journeys until at least the end of January, but deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar said hospitality businesses needed to face the likelihood they would be closed until the end of March.
Ryanair criticised Ireland’s travel curbs, which include the requirement of a Covid-19 test for people arriving from Britain but not from the neighbouring British region of Northern Ireland.
Russia's official number of coronavirus deaths passes 60,000
Russia reported 23,541 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, which brought the total number of cases to 3,332,142.
The number of coronavirus deaths rose by 506 in the past 24 hours, taking the national death toll to 60,457, the coronavirus crisis centre said.
Updated
Moderna CEO says vaccine likely to protect for "couple of years"
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is likely to offer protection of up to a couple of years, its chief executive has said, even though more data is still needed to make a definitive assessment.
The US biotech company, which stunned the world last year by coming up with a vaccine against the disease caused by the coronavirus in just a few weeks, received approval for its shot from the European commission on Wednesday.
Given vaccines development and pharmacovigilance usually requires years, the protection duration of Covid-19 shots is a lingering question for scientists and regulators.
“The nightmare scenario that was described in the media in the spring with a vaccine only working a month or two is, I think, out of the window,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said. “The antibody decay generated by the vaccine in humans goes down very slowly [...] We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years.”
Bancel added his company was about to prove its vaccine would also be effective against variants of the coronavirus seen in Britain and South Africa.
Scientists have said newly developed vaccines should be equally effective against both variants.
Updated
Tunisia’s tourism revenue plunged by 65% in 2020 compared to 2019, to around $746m, as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to the country’s economy.
In 2020, the number of visitors fell by 78%, as western tourists deserted Tunisia*s hotels and resorts, a government official told Reuters. Tunisia had received a record 9.5 million visitors in 2019.
The contraction of Tunisia’s economy is expected to be at least 7% in 2020 as a result of the loss of revenue from tourism, which accounts for about 8% of GDP and is a major source of foreign currency.
Central bank data showed that tourism revenues fell to 2bn Tunisian dinars ($746m), compared to 5.6bn dinars the previous year.
Travel restrictions and the spread of Covid-19 around the world led most hotels in Tunisia to close and tens of thousands in the tourism sector lost their jobs, which prompted the government to announce facilities in loans to hotel owners.
A London consultant has warned the situation facing hospitals is “definitely worse than the first wave” as the capital grapples with a surge of coronavirus cases.
Intensive care professor Rupert Pearse told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
It is definitely worse than the first wave and proving much harder to deal with now as the resources we had in the first wave aren’t available to us.
So we’re really struggling to provide the quality of patient care that we think patients deserve. And the impact of the pandemic is taking care away from other illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.
Hospital bosses in the UK are seeking capacity from the care and nursing home sector as hospital beds fill up amid a coronavirus surge, the chief executive of NHS Providers said.
Chris Hopson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
This is escalating really quickly. We’ve seen 5,000 new patients in hospital beds with Covid-19 over the past week - that’s 10 full hospitals’ worth of Covid patients in hospitals in just seven days, so it’s a really big challenge.
We are now reaching the point in some places where hospital beds are full, community beds are full and community at home services are also full.
What trust leaders are trying to do is they know there is some spare capacity in the care and nursing home sector and they’re in the middle of conversation with care and nursing home colleagues to see if they can access that capacity.
It’s literally leaving no stone unturned to maximise every single piece of capacity we’ve got in those areas under real pressure.
He said the Exeter and Manchester Nightingale hospitals are currently being used but said the Nightingales are the “last resort insurance policy” as they are not “purpose built for health and care” and require the diversion of staff.
Covid kills half of Sussex care home's residents over Christmas
A care home in East Sussex, England has been devastated by Covid, losing half of all its residents to the disease over Christmas, fuelling fears the new, more transmissible virus variant sweeping the south-east of England is beginning to breach homes’ defences.
Thirteen of 27 residents at Edendale Lodge care home in Crowhurst had died with confirmed or suspected Covid since 13 December, said the home operator’s managing director, Adam Hutchison, who also runs care homes in Kent.
More than a third of the staff also tested positive during the outbreak in which residents died on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. The latest death came on Monday this week.
“It was an awful Christmas and terrible for the staff,” Hutchison said. “It is just unstoppable. We are sitting ducks.”
Across England, Covid outbreaks in care homes are rising again, after months of far lower infection rates than in the spring as a result of control measures.
Abu Dhabi has started Phase III clinical trials of Russia’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine, known as Sputnik V, amid a surge in infections in the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s media office said.
The human trial, announced in October before the recent rise in cases, is initially seeking up to 500 volunteers to be vaccinated at a hospital in the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Two doses of the vaccine will be given, 20 days apart, to volunteers, the statement said.
The UAE is also conducting Phase III trials of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). The UAE has approved the vaccine and it is available for free to anybody who wants it, with priority given to more vulnerable individuals, according to the health ministry.
Last month, the emirate of Dubai only began inoculating people with the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Authorities in the UAE, which has a population around nine million, say 826,301 vaccines had been administered as of Tuesday, without specifying which type. They added the UAE aims to vaccine more than 50% of the population in the first quarter this year.
The UAE has seen the number of new daily cases more than double in the past ten days. On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 2,067 new infections, a daily record.
In total, the Gulf Arab state has recorded 218,766 infections and 689 deaths from the virus.
The Czech Republic on Thursday reported 17,668 new cases of coronavirus over the past 24 hours in its highest daily tally.
Deaths in the country of 10.7 million, one of Europe’s worst-hit, rose by 185 to 12,621 including revisions for previous days.
Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray taking over the blog for the next few hours - please do get in touch with any story tips or personal experiences you would like to share.
Email: jessica.murray@theguardian.com
Twitter: @journojess_
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, on this nightmarish day.
Thanks for following along – and at least these Japanese cheerleaders are trying to bring some pep to our day (or at least the day of Tokyo commuters).
Summary
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- US reports record daily deaths. The Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data, has just posted the data for 6 January – the same day as the Capitol attack – which shows the US again suffering a record daily death toll, with 3,865 Americans dying in 24 hours. This is the first time the toll has passed 3,800. 145,000 cases were reported on 6 January.
- Hospitals in London could soon be overwhelmed by Covid-19 and left short of almost 5,500 beds they need to cope with the explosion in cases, NHS leaders have revealed. The health service’s lead doctor for the capital shared the worrying analysis with the most senior medics in the city’s NHS hospital trusts on a Zoom call on Wednesday afternoon.
- Mexico has reported a new high for a daily increase in coronavirus cases, with 13,345 newly confirmed infections reported Wednesday for the previous 24 hours. Officials also reported a near-record of 1,165 deaths related to Covid-19.
- Arizona has become the Covid “hot spot of the world”, public health experts warned, as the US state saw a triple-digit number of new virus-related deaths for the second day in a row.
- Japan to declare state of emergency for greater Tokyo. Japan is to declare a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area later today, after a record number of coronavirus cases were reported in the capital and across the country. The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has come under pressure from his own health experts to take action, as the country battles a third wave of infections far more serious than those seen earlier in the pandemic.
- China reports highest local cases since July as travel to Hebei province blocked. China reported 63 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday – the highest single-day tally since July – as authorities try to stamp out an outbreak of the virus in a city of 11 million near Beijing.
- World Health Organization experts warned Wednesday there could be six months of “hard, hard road ahead” in 2021 before vaccines turn the tide against the coronavirus pandemic. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said that in many countries, the situation was very worrying - and would get worse.
- Pandemic stress may be causing people to lose their hair, according to a new study. By mid-summer, rates of a hair-shedding condition called telogen effluvium (TE) had surged more than 400% in a racially diverse neighborhood in New York City, researchers report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
US reports record daily deaths
The Johns Hopkins University tracker, which relies on official government data, has just posted the data for 6 January – the same day as the Capitol attack – which shows the US again suffering a record daily death toll, with 3,865 Americans dying in 24 hours. This is the first time the toll has passed 3,800.
145,000 cases were reported on 6 January.
London hospitals could soon be overwhelmed by Covid
Hospitals in London could soon be overwhelmed by Covid-19 and left short of almost 5,500 beds they need to cope with the explosion in cases, NHS leaders have revealed.
The health service’s lead doctor for the capital shared the worrying analysis with the most senior medics in the city’s NHS hospital trusts on a Zoom call on Wednesday afternoon.
In his briefing Dr Vin Diwakar said the sheer numbers of people becoming seriously unwell with Covid could see the capital’s hospitals facing a shortfall of anything between 1,932 and 5,422 beds by 19 January.
Hospitals will face a serious lack of beds by then even if London’s Nightingale hospital reopens, they manage to increase their supply of beds and measures to limit demand – such as the latest lockdown which began this week, the third England has faced – prove effective:
The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in Australia has been brought forward to mid-to-late February with the Morrison government aiming to have four million receive the jab by March.
Announcing the accelerated rollout on Thursday, the prime minister Scott Morrison also indicated it would be up to the states and territories to decide whether the vaccine could be made compulsory for some groups, such as aged care workers:
The number of Americans who have died from 24 December to the latest toll, which is for 5 January, is 31,146, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Today the US also recorded its highest Covid death toll of the pandemic so far.
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) January 7, 2021
More than 30,000 Americans have died since Christmas eve.
Updated
An estimated 150,000 bars and restaurants in Tokyo and the three neighbouring prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama will be asked to stop serving alcohol at 7pm, and people will be encouraged to avoid non-essential outings after 8 pm.
Companies will be asked to step up remote working provision with the aim of reducing commuter traffic by 70%, media reports said.
While Japanese authorities lack the legal powers to enforce virus prevention measures, most people are expected to comply with the advice - one of several factors experts believe explains Japan’s success in keeping its caseload and death toll far lower than those in the US, UK and some European countries.
That said, the government is planning legislation that would allow local authorities to fine businesses that do not comply. For the time being, subsidies will be offered to establishments that close early, while the government could publicly name those that fail to follow the guidelines.
Suga, who has seen his approval ratings plummet over his handling of the pandemic, is expected to formally announce the state of emergency on Thursday evening, hours after his minister in charge of the Covid-19 response warned that pressure on Tokyo’s hospitals was reaching “crisis point”.
Updated
Japan to declare state of emergency for greater Tokyo
Japan is to declare a state of emergency in the greater Tokyo area later today, after a record number of coronavirus cases were reported in the capital and across the country.
The prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has come under pressure from his own health experts to take action, as the country battles a third wave of infections far more serious than those seen earlier in the pandemic.
Tokyo reported a record 1,591 new infections on Wednesday, while nationwide cases exceeded 6,000, also an all-time high.
The measures, which will go into effect on Friday and end on 7 February, will be less strict than lockdowns seen in other countries, and unlike Japan’s first state of emergency in the spring, schools will not be asked to close.
In addition, sports events will be allowed to go ahead, with the cap for spectators revised down to 5,000 people or 50% of capacity, whichever is smaller.
On 5 January the US recorded 3,775 deaths in one day, according to Johns Hopkins University, the fourth time the toll in the world’s worst-affected country has exceeded 3,500. Each of the four days has occurred in the last three weeks.
The total US death toll is 361,063. The number of cases is stands at 21,294,092.
Updated
Japanese cheerleaders danced and cheered on commuters outside a Tokyo rail station on Thursday in a bid to lift spirits with the capital heading into another state of emergency over the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reuters: “Let’s go, fight!” the four-person squad shouted out to passers-by in front of Shimbashi Station, with their protective face shields fogging up in the chilly Tokyo morning as they waved gold pom poms.
Japan is planning a one-month state of emergency for the greater Tokyo area beginning Friday to contain a record surge in coronavirus infections.
Head cheerleader Kumi Asazuma said the group had been performing for more than 10 years to help energise morning commuters, but their mission had taken on new meaning during the pandemic.
“Especially now, the spread of the coronavirus isn’t stopping, people have lost their jobs ... I think this is a period where people are really suffering a lot,” Asazuma, 37, who works as a freelance event emcee and presenter, told Reuters.
“We want to deliver a smile to cheer people up. We’re doing this hoping that people can feel even a little bit better.”
Podcast: How the Covid surge has left the NHS on the brink
Boris Johnson has announced a new national lockdown amid fears the NHS could be overwhelmed within weeks with Covid patients. Denis Campbell and Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden describe a service already at breaking point:
Interrupting this coronavirus coverage to bring you coverage of the Other Thing – here is what we know so far about the Capitol attacks and everything that has happened since:
what we know so far about what happened at the Capitol today https://t.co/REIWIRs96C
— Helen Sullivan (@helenrsullivan) January 7, 2021
China reports highest local cases since July as travel to Hebei province blocked
China reported 63 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday – the highest single-day tally since July – as authorities try to stamp out an outbreak of the virus in a city of 11 million near Beijing.
A recent outbreak in northern Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, has seen cases spike and prompted mass testing, school closures and travel links being cut into the province.
On Thursday, there were 51 more cases reported in the province, the National Health Commission reported - plus another 69 asymptomatic cases.
State broadcaster CCTV showed a small crowd gathered outside a railway station in Shijiazhuang being directed by medical staff in full hazmat suits and protective wear.
Major highways leading into the city of Shijiazhuang, around 300 kilometres (200 miles) south of Beijing, have been closed and inter-city bus travel halted in an attempt to prevent the virus spreading beyond the city.
The state-run Global Times reported that railway tickets from Hebei to the capital Beijing were no longer being sold in a bid to halt the spread of the virus.
One district in Shijiazhuang - which has a population of 11 million - has been declared high risk and sealed off, and authorities said tens of thousands have already been tested for the virus.
There were also 11 imported cases and one other domestic case in northeastern China confirmed Thursday.
Mexico reports record one-day case rise
Mexico has reported a new high for a daily increase in coronavirus cases, with 13,345 newly confirmed infections reported Wednesday for the previous 24 hours. Officials also reported a near-record of 1,165 deaths related to Covid-19.
The country has now seen about 1.48 million infections and almost 130,000 deaths so far in the pandemic. A low testing rate means that is an undercount, and official estimates suggest the real death toll is over 180,000.
Mexico’s vaccination effort continues at a glacial rate, with about 7,500 shots administered Wednesday, a rate similar to previous days. In Mexico City, the current center of the pandemic in the country, 88% percent of hospital beds are full.
A reminder that you can get in touch or follow me on Twitter (where I am mainly tweeting about the Capitol attack, let’s be honest) @helenrsullivan.
US inflation expectations rose on Wednesday in anticipation of more fiscal stimulus after Democrats secured control of the Senate.
With control over both legislative houses now secured, Democrats have more power to advance President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer on Wednesday said sending most Americans $2,000 checks would be a top priority in the new Congress. Still, with the Senate divided down the middle, compromise with Republicans and rightward-leaning Democrats will be necessary for Biden to make substantial changes.
The breakeven inflation rate on the 10-year Treasury Inflation Protection Security (TIPS) - which is typically in line with market expectations of inflation - rose to an intra-day high of 2.092%.
It was last at 2.069%, ending the day at its highest level in more than two years. But the rate was nevertheless just a hair over the Federal Reserve’s target average 2% rate and only slightly larger than moves higher on Monday and Tuesday.
The move in inflation expectations came as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield broke through 1%, out of recent trading ranges, to its highest since March.
Hair loss surges in NYC minority communities during pandemic
Pandemic stress may be causing people to lose their hair, according to a new study. By mid-summer, rates of a hair-shedding condition called telogen effluvium (TE) had surged more than 400% in a racially diverse neighborhood in New York City, researchers report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Reuters reports.
From November 2019 through February 2020, the incidence of TE cases was 0.4%. By August, that rate had climbed to 2.3%, they found. “It is unclear if the increase in cases of TE is more closely related to the physiological toll of infection or extreme emotional stress,” said coauthor Dr. Shoshana Marmon of Coney Island Hospital.
The increase was due primarily to TE in persons of color, particularly in the Hispanic community, “in line with the disproportionately high mortality rate of this subset of the population due to Covid-19 in NYC,” the authors said.
TE rates rose in smaller non-white minorities as well, but not among Blacks, who also were severely impacted by Covid-19.
Dr. Adam Friedman of George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, who was not involved in the research, said he too is seeing increases in TE “and the timing makes plenty of sense, as the onset of shedding is typically three months following the traumatic event,” which would correspond to the rise of the pandemic.
Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies director, said there had been a wave of expectation when vaccines began to trickle on stream last month, but people could not breathe a sigh of relief and slacken their vigilance against the disease.
“We’re all a year into this. It’s a really, really long battle,” he said.
“We’ve got another three or six months of hard, hard road ahead of us. But we can do it.
“The cavalry is coming, the vaccines are coming - but they’re not here yet, for most people in the world.”
As for the new mutations of the virus detected in Britain and South Africa, while there appears to be an increase in transmissibility, there is no apparent change in disease severity, said Van Kerkhove.
The faster-spreading mutation is “not catastrophic, in the sense that it means it’s out of control and there’s nothing we can do”, the US expert said, because the existing basic measures to stop the virus spreading would still work.
Ryan said there was “absolutely no indication” that the vaccines as developed would not work against the new variations.
But, he added, “even if there was a change in that, it is relatively straightforward to tweak the vaccines”.
When viruses mutate, they “can become more infectious but they rarely become more severe, because it’s not in their interest”, he explained.
WHO warns of ‘hard road ahead’ to beat pandemic
World Health Organization experts warned Wednesday there could be six months of “hard, hard road ahead” in 2021 before vaccines turn the tide against the coronavirus pandemic.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said that in many countries, the situation was very worrying - and would get worse.
“A handful of countries are really seeing incredibly intense transmission,” notably in Europe and North America, with “some really scary numbers in terms of cases, hospitalisations and admissions to intensive care units”, she said.
Social mixing of households over the Christmas and New Year period will result in a further rise in case numbers in January, she told a live event on WHO social media channels.
“We are starting to see it now; we will see it in the coming weeks. In many countries, we will see the situation will get worse before it gets better,” she said.
Arizona is Covid-19 ‘hot spot of the world’, health officials warn
Arizona has become the Covid “hot spot of the world”, public health experts have warned five months after president Donald Trump held up the US state’s pandemic response as exemplary.
“It’s way worse than July already, and it’s going to continue to get worse. We’re probably two weeks behind LA in terms of our situation,” Will Humble, head of the Arizona Public Health Association, said referring to Los Angeles County, where a coronavirus surge has created a shortage of oxygen.
The situation has led ambulance crews to stop transporting patients they can’t revive in the field, with one out of every 119 people in the state testing positive in the past week.
Arizona, which now has the worst coronavirus diagnosis rate in the country, has seen a triple-digit number of new virus-related deaths for the second day in a row and more than 7,200 daily cases, according to health officials.
As hospitals increasingly face being overwhelmed, pressure is mounting for the introduction of more forceful control measures such as mandatory statewide masks.
But Humble said he doubts Republican Gov. Doug Ducey- who has rejected calls for tighter curbs by claiming they would risk jobs- will change anything.
Under current rules, indoor dining is allowed and gyms are open at limited capacity. Ducey has dismissed a proposal to have all public schools switch to virtual learning for two weeks after the holidays.
The British army says it is on track to meet its annual recruitment target for only the second time in eight years amid tentative signs that the pandemic crisis has acted as a “rallying cry to serve”.
With nearly three months to go before the recruiting year ends in March, a total of 7,719 young people have signed up. That represents 78% of the numbers required, giving army chiefs confidence that the goal will be achieved.
Formally, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is not yet ready to declare that Covid-19 has helped with recruitment, but one defence source has said they believed the near-year-long crisis was among the factors persuading young people to join.
Applications often rise during periods of economic weakness, and the army offers a secure career at a time when many other employment opportunities have been curtailed. Another reason cited was the obvious need to help out around the UK in establishing Covid testing and vaccination sites. “It’s clear there is a rallying cry to serve,” the source added:
England sees record hospitalisations
The scale of the health emergency now facing the UK was laid bare on Wednesday night as figures showed that more than 1,000 people had died from the virus in the previous 24 hours and hospitals reported treating a record 30,000 Covid patients.
The alarming rise in fatalities came two days after the prime minister ordered a draconian new lockdown, which was endorsed overwhelmingly in a Commons vote on Wednesday.
The daily death toll for the UK of 1,041 people was the worst since the first wave of the virus last spring, and the number of new cases hit a fresh high of 62,322.
Boris Johnson was forced to defend his handling of the Covid pandemic as:
- 3,587 people were admitted to hospitals in England known to be suffering with Covid – surpassing the previous record high hit last weekend
- Manchester city council leader Sir Richard Leese warned that Greater Manchester hospitals were “at serious risk of falling over”
- Care home providers warned that rates of infection are rising as they await delivery of the vaccine, with one home in Sussex losing half its residents over Christmas
- Headteachers warned that some schools are “rammed”, despite the lockdown.
The PM urged the public to stay at home on Monday, almost a fortnight after the government’s Sage committee warned that the new variant of the disease meant it was unlikely to be possible to bring it under control without tougher measures, including the closure of schools:
Summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented global crisis totally dwarfed by US politics.
What a day.
My name is Helen Sullivan and as always, you can get in touch with me on Twitter here.
In pandemic news, UK prime minister Boris Johnson was forced to defend his handling of the Covid pandemic in the House of Commons as 3,587 people were admitted to hospitals in England known to be suffering with Covid – surpassing the previous record high hit last weekend.
Meanwhile Arizona has become the Covid “hot spot of the world”, public health experts have warned, as the US state saw a triple-digit number of new virus-related deaths for the second day in a row.
- France is unlikely to avoid the new and more contagious “UK variant” of the coronavirus, the government’s chief scientific advisor on the epidemic said as it was reported the country already had about 22 confirmed cases of the UK variant.
- Tunisia recorded 2,820 new confirmed coronavirus cases- the most since the start of the pandemic-the health ministry said on Wednesday. Seventy more deaths were reported, taking the death toll to more than 5,000.
- European Medicines Agency approves Moderna coronavirus vaccine. The EMA has approved the Moderna vaccine, making it the second coronavirus shot to be cleared for general use across the EU, as tensions continued to rise over the slow progress of vaccination programmes in the bloc.
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Japan’s daily coronavirus cases hit record as state of emergency looms. Japan’s Covid-19 cases reached a new daily record of at least 6,001 on Wednesday, as the government faced mounting pressure from health experts to impose a strict state of emergency for the Tokyo greater metropolitan area.
- Peru and Bolivia see hospitals overflow and cases rise as fears of second wave grow. The critical care wards of major hospitals in Peru and Bolivia stand at or near collapse after end-of-year holidays, reflecting wider regional public health capacity concerns as much of Latin America struggles to secure adequate Covid-19 vaccine supplies.
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Portugal extends state of emergency amid record daily Covid cases. The daily number of Covid-19 cases in the nation of around 10 million people reached a record high of 10,027, putting increasing pressure on the health system.
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Ireland tightens Covid-19 lockdown by closing schools and construction. Ireland has ordered the closure of most schools and construction sites for at least three weeks in an effort to curb a sharp rise in Covid-19 infections, tightening a lockdown that has already closed most hospitality and retail outlets.
- China stalls WHO mission to investigate origins of coronavirus. China has attempted to downplay concerns over23its refusal to authorise a fact-finding mission to the country by the World Health Organization to study the origins of Covid-19, saying it is still negotiating access with the UN body.
- Greek churches open for Epiphany despite coronavirus lockdown. In what had been described by some as a rebellion, by others a declaration of war, churches across Greece opened their doors on Wednesday –25defying nationwide lockdown measures – to mark one of the holiest days in the Orthodox calendar.
Updated
